Battle of Britain Luftwaffe POW records Camp X Canada. Do they still exist?

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Member for

15 years 5 months

Posts: 85

I am trying to find out more details of a Luftwaffe pilot whose ME110 was shot down in the Battle of Britain. The machine belly landed in Stansted, Kent on 31.08.1940 with a dead gunner. The pilot survived (Glaeske) and was made a POW. My friend in Germany managed to trace a relative but talk about hitting the crossbar, the relative had no family records at all of the man! Sadly not even a photograph. My friend managed to obtain some further details from the German archives (with the families permission). Glaeske was sent to Canada in 1941 but repatriated in a prisoner exchange in 1944. Sadly he died in 1945, just after the end of the war. We know he was sent to Camp X in Canada.
Question: is it possible to access POW records in Canada (or the UK)? Sometimes POW photographs from official files appear in publications. Where do these come from? What I would dearly like to locate is a photograph of Glaeske. No photograph apparently exists of his force landed ME110. I wrote to John Vasco years ago who wrote a book about the history of Erprobungsgruppe 210 the unit the plane came from but he had no more details.

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Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 819

You can find a little more information in AIR 40/2398 or AIR 40/2399 at the National Archives. There will be a report of the forced landing and any information gleaned from the wreckage, pilot or found on the gunner. Beyond that if you search the NA register for German Prisoners of War you will get hundreds of items, it is just knowing which ones will contain the information you're after.

There might be something in FO 945/451 which is a file about repatriation on compassionate ground within the Foreign & Commonwealth Office series.
FO 916/303 covers reports about PoW camps in Canada from 1942, so again that may contain reference, there will probably be similar files a few numbers either side covering other years.

Member for

15 years 5 months

Posts: 85

Thank you Allan. I have the intelligence reports on the crash. Are any of other sources you mention likely to have 'mug shots' of the Luftwaffe personnel?

Member for

17 years 7 months

Posts: 275

Camp X located in Canada was not a POW Camp
(It was however locate not far from the POW Camp at Bowmanville Ontario )
Camp X was a training camp for Spies , special commandos , counter intelligence etc
If he was sent there , I wonder why.
As he was being sent home. Were the Allies trying to "turn" him prior to repatriation

Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 819

I've no idea if any of the other source may contain photos or not, I've never had them out at the NA, surely the mug shots must be somewhere if they have appeared in books and articles. Not a subject area I've ever particularly looked into.

Just reading the post by Fleet16b reminded me that there were some files which came up in the search of the NA i did which mentioned re-education. You never no such things may have gone on.